Richard Thomas, managing director of Cardiff & Co, argues that despite the administrative boundaries, a city region approach is what will make the economy of Wales competitive

Richard Thomas, managing director of Cardiff & Co, argues that despite the administrative boundaries, a city region approach is what will make the economy of Wales competitive

The concept of the city-region is not new. Over the past five years especially, the city-region concept has become increasingly recognised as a reflection of real economic geography and a key tool in the economic competitiveness agenda.

A city-region is organic, an area without formal boundaries, and more dependent on people’s attitudes and perceptions than anything else.

The problem is that economic opportunities in South East Wales are not being maximised, despite the hard work of many to make the area more business friendly. The private sector is frequently being let down in areas such as transport, housing, and skills – all areas that could benefit from a city-region approach. As could the provision of services such as arts and culture venues and retail destinations.

With that in mind, look back to local government reorganisation in 1996 when 22 local authorities were created – hardly conducive to a strategic approach to economic development.

Local government structures may be fragmented but the city region is already defining itself by people’s work and leisure pattern.

We at Cardiff & Co don’t speak in terms of Cardiff being a small city. We speak in terms of the Cardiff city-region having a compact city centre but with a catchment area of 1.4 million people within 20 miles.

We speak of the Cardiff city-region encompassing the Brecon Beacons, the Vale’s beautiful coastline, the industrial heritage of RCT and the activity-based recreational opportunities afforded by Caerphilly County Borough. We also speak of Newport as a big player within the Cardiff city-region, operating in some ways as its own city-region within the wider Cardiff city-region context.

Has anybody else noticed that England’s regions now play second fiddle to England’s city-regions?

The brands we’re competing with now are the core cities in the UK and their city-regions – the likes of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

We work on the back of recognising the fact that “Cardiff”, the capital for Wales, is the strongest destination brand by far in Wales let alone South East Wales.

We don’t have the 8m that Cardiff’s twin city Stuttgart will spend on marketing this year, nor the £9m or so Birmingham has, Glasgow’s £5m or Edinburgh’s £4m. We have to recognise that our budgets are incapable of creating a brand from scratch – as are the budgets of other organisations involved in promoting different parts of Wales.

But we can use our budgets to manipulate a brand that already exists by virtue of Cardiff’s pre-eminence in the field of major events and its status as the capital city.

The private sector has seen some sense in this approach. We work with more than 220 businesses, each making a financial contribution to the marketing of the Cardiff city-region. Some invest tens of thousands of pounds while others invest hundreds.

These are businesses that see a benefit in aligning themselves with the Cardiff city-region brand – a brand that in relative terms has a positive position in the market-place.

Note I said in relative terms. The fact is although Cardiff is seen as a success story in Wales – and is often looked at with envy – perceptions of Cardiff further afield vary.

Imagine yourself a conference organiser based in Amsterdam. Or a potential tourist in Glasgow. Or the estates director for a FTSE250 company in London. What Welsh destination brand, if any, is likely to grab your attention?

I believe the Cardiff city-region brand, from a purely marketing perspective, is the brand most likely to grab people’s attention, be they potential visitors, conference organisers or inward investors. It’s the brand that the wider city-region could exploit. It’s the brand that could open doors.

However, for the Cardiff city-region to succeed, we need to deliver greater critical mass behind the Cardiff city-region brand. We need more advocates. We need more resources.

To exploit the real economic opportunity, we need the Cardiff city-region to be the attack brand for South East Wales as a whole. We need to use our greater critical mass and better aligned messages to address the misperceptions out there that don’t just affect Cardiff – they affect the wider city-region too.

What we need is the courage to seize the opportunity; to embrace the city-region approach in the same way as the rest of the UK and the same way the private sector has here – to invest in transport, housing, education and training through a city-region lens; play to our strengths; step back and consider the importance of perception, brand and reputation and then put our full weight behind them to pull in the investment that will push forward the economy of Wales.